Carbon nanostructure is a promising technology for use in transistors, interconnects, transparent electrodes, solar cells, LED's and battery electrodes, to name a few. Electrical contact is an indispensable part in electronic device/circuit. The small contact area makes the electrical coupling between carbon nanostructure and metal electrode extremely difficult. The large electrical contact resistance hinders the practical electronics applications of the carbon nanostructure, although it has high intrinsically electrical conductivity. Recent experimental results on both semiconducting and metallic carbon nanostructure devices revealed that the surface chemistry is very important for forming good electrical contact between carbon nanostructure and metal. This contact resistance possibly results from the non-wetting tubular structure and non-clean interface between CNT and metal. There is an atomic-level separation between CNT and metal for non-wetting surfaces.
Carbon nanostructures (carbon nanotube, graphene and carbon nanofiber) have been viewed as promising candidates for a variety of electronic applications. Electrical contact is an indispensable part in all kinds of electronic devices. The small contact area results a large contact resistance between carbon nanostructure and metal. The metal wetting to the carbon nanostructure is imperfect, where the metal atoms are not fully covered on the carbon nanostructure surface. An atomic-level physical gap exists between carbon nanostructure and metal. What is needed is a method or providing low contact resistance between metals and carbon nanostructures, and providing devices having low resistance coupling between the carbon nanaostructure and metal elements.